The senseless scourge of rhino poaching continues to grow, with poaching levels at 15-year highs.

Part of the reason according to WWF is rising demand in Asia, where the horn is used in traditional Chinese medicine, but Mongabay points out an undoubted contributing factor. Rhino horn is now worth more than gold...


(Hat-tip Matthew McDermott
A kilogram of rhino horn now goes for $60,000 on the black market, whereas that much gold is currently worth a bit over $40,600. That's $1610 an ounce for the rhino horn.

Back in July, WWF reported that from 2000-2005, about three rhinos were killed per month in Africa as a whole, with that figure rising to 12 per month in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

At least in the case of Zimbabwe, an utter lack of law enforcement, not helped by virtually no funding for rangers to protect rhinos, and weak penalties for poachers who are caught doesn't help the situation.

In fact, 25% of Zimbabwe's rhinos have be killed just in the past three years, as evidence mounts that poachers are linking up with international crime syndicates to sell the horn.

Poaching in Asia isn't much better, with at least ten rhinos being killed in India and seven in Nepal since the start of 2009.

There are only five remaining rhino species left in the world and, according to the UCN, three are classified as critically endangered (Javan, Sumatran, and black rhino), the white rhino is listed as 'near threatened', while the Indian rhino is 'vulnerable'.

Learn more (and get involved) here.

Tags: africa, animals, crime, endangered species, extinction, greed, india, loathsome people, poaching, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood: Damned, Dirty Apes

My son & I caught it this evening...



Very good film. Definitely worth seeing.

Tags: africa, movies, racism
From: Chicago
Mood: Satisfied

Un-fucking-believable...

From the Friendly Athiest web site:

"I can’t believe this sort of thing still goes on in this day and age... five people suspected of witchcraft, brutally murdered — burned alive — in Nyamataro, a village in Kisii, Kenya.

"The victims are elderly, and four of the five are women. You can see them trying to get out of the ditch only to be pushed back in. Some victims are kicked around, others are beaten with a stick.

"It’s the worst of human nature. To paraphrase Voltaire, when people believe absurdities, they can commit atrocities. This is a perfect example..."

Tags: africa, death penalty, horror, jesus fucking christ, murder, religion, torture
From: Chicago
Mood: Horrified

"This is one of the most fucked up things I have ever heard of..."
- Richard Metzger


Hats off to the young men who had the heart — and the courage — to make this film, and for organizing the How It Ends event. As Xeni Jardin said: "They're heroes, full stop."

Now, someone bring me the severed head of Joseph Kony so I can make a fuckin' lawn ornament out of his skull.

Tags: africa, child abuse, children, horror, jesus fucking christ, murder, religion, slavery, uganda, violence, war
From: Chicago
Mood: Horrified

Poachers on the hunt for ivory have stepped up their use of poison arrows and spears to kill elephants in southern Kenya, according to conservationists who say the techniques are harder to trace than gun attacks...


(Hat-tip National Geographic)
The surge is part of a nationwide increase in attacks on the animals, according to a report issued earlier this month by the Amboseli Trust for Elephants.

Since the start of 2008, 19 elephants have been killed and another 25 wounded by spears, arrows, and bullets in the Amboseli region near Mount Kilimanjaro, the report says. Of those killed, ten animals had had their tusks removed—the first time in many years that ivory has been taken from Amboseli elephants.

In the last six weeks, poachers have also killed five elephants in the nearby Tsavo National Park region. Some were felled by gunfire, others by poisoned arrows.

Conservation groups fear that the rise in poaching is a result of a UN decision to allow the first ivory auction in a decade in 2008, an event that yielded more than a million U.S. dollars from Chinese and Japanese bidders.

"Since the one-off ivory sales from southern Africa countries late last year, we have noted an unprecedented rise of elephant poaching incidents in Tsavo," Jonathan Kirui, Tsavo National Park's assistant director, said in a statement released Monday. "Our security team is on full alert and is going full force to ensure that the poachers are deterred."

Officials with the Amboseli trust think poachers are using a poison made from acocanthera shrubs, which are common in Kenya. The plant's toxin is frighteningly effective and there is no antidote, the report says.

"When you shoot an elephant—that loud bang—people will hear it," said Patrick Omondi, head of species conservation at the Kenya Wildlife Service. "You shoot this elephant with a poisoned arrow, then they follow the elephant until it dies, and then they pluck out the ivory," Omondi said. "It's a soft way of killing."

In 2008 the Kenya Wildlife Service reported 98 elephants killed for their ivory, double the 2007 figure, Omondi said. Officials link the rise in attacks to demand from Chinese workers constructing a road near Amboseli National Park and to lucrative trade across the border into Tanzania. In a recent interview with a local East African newspaper, Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Bo denied the smuggling allegations.

Tags: africa, crime, elephants, environment, extinction, greed, poaching, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood: Disgruntled

On the eve of Zimbabwean president Robert "The Butcher of Harare" Mugabe's 85th birthday, his followers are determined that it should be an occasion that their great leader will never forget...


In a shattered nation where 7,000,000 citizens barely survive on international food aid, 94% are jobless, inflation is spiraling out of control and both HIV/AIDS and cholera rampages unchecked, Zanu official are busy soliciting “donations” from Zimbabwe business owners for Mugabe's birthday celebration.

The donation list includes 2,000 bottles of champagne (Moët & Chandon or ’61 Bollinger preferred); 500 bottles of whisky (Johnny Walker Blue Label, 22-year-old Chivas); 8,000 lobsters; 100 kg king prawns; 3,000 ducks; 4,000 portions of caviar; 8,000 boxes of Ferrero Rocher; 16,000 eggs; 3,000 chocolate and vanilla cakes; 4,000 packs of pork sausages; 500 kg cheese; 4,000 packets of crackers, and more. A postscript adds: “No mealie meal” (the ground corn staple on which the vast majority of Zimbabweans survived until the country’s collapse rendered even that a luxury).

Those who prefer to give in cash are invited to send “donations” of between $45,000 and $55,000 to a U.S. dollar bank account in the name of the "21st February Movement," a youth organization controlled by Mugabe and named after the date of his birthday.

Sources say that donation "requests" are being made by groups of youths who are "aggressive and threatening," warning that they would make life "difficult" for businesses that don't pitch in.

Zimbabweans have become accustomed to the “elite” staging of extravagant celebrations for Mugabe's birthday — last year’s reportedly cost $1.2 million — but the organizer of this year’s bash is Patrick Zhuwawo (Mugabe’s nephew) who seems determined to outdo his predecessors. At the launch of the fundraising campaign in January, Zhuwawo said that thousands of youths and invited guests would join the first family for the celebrations in Chinhoyi, in Mashonaland West (Mugabe’s home province) on February 28th, and that that hundreds of cattle, goats and sheep would also be slaughtered for the lavish one-day celebration.

“It’s an important day for Zimbabweans to celebrate the life of our great leader and Africa’s hero,” Zhuwawo said. “Zanu continues to receive massive donations from the corporate world, ordinary Zimbabweans and from people from all walks of life, and we are confident that this year’s celebrations will be the best.”

Let's hope someone brings a rifle to the party.
ETA (just in): Yet another reason to string this motherfucker up.

Tags: africa, dictator of the month, disease, disgrace, loathsome people, robert mugabe, starvation, zimbabwe
From: Chicago
Mood: Head Shot

At feeding time, it's not just the odd pint of milk that's needed for these hungry mouths - it's gallons...


Every one of these elephant calves lost its parents to the poacher's gun or snare. Rescued from all corners of Kenya and brought to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 30 minutes outside the capital of Nairobi, they're cared for with every intention of returning them to the wild.

But this year there are more orphaned elephants than ever, because poaching has increased dramatically.

The poachers have been encouraged by the Convention for Trade in Endangered Species' decision to allow China and Japan to buy 108 tons of ivory in African stockpiles.

74-year-old Dame Daphne Sheldrick, who runs the orphanage, believes there is a link between legal ivory sales and the number of newly-orphaned calves.

"Every time ivory is auctioned legally, there's a rise in poaching," she says. "We estimate that the number of elephants killed in Africa this year has risen by almost 45% last year" said Daphne, who has worked with her staff to protect Africa's wildlife for over 50 years. "At the beginning of 2008 the total number of infant elephants that had been hand-reared through the Trust's Nairobi Nursery was 75. By the end of 2008, the number of orphans number over 90."


The elephants are fed a special formula milk every three hours day and night and are not weaned until they are three years old. Eventually, they graduate to a 'rehabilitation facility' in Tsavo National Park to enable them to rejoin wild elephant herds.

"Gradually the orphans pluck up courage to mingle with wild herds while the keepers maintain a safe distance," says Daphne, "but before they get to that stage, they'll take their jumbo milk breaks every three hours.

You can help.

Tags: africa, animals, ecology, elephants, endangered species, environment, poaching
From: Chicago
Mood: Pessimistic
Now Playing: Kitchen Chaos

"The evils of government are directly proportional
to the tolerance of the people." - Frank Kent


Hyperinflation, political intimidation, beatings, abductions, murder...

And now this:

Relief workers in rural Zimbabwe are reporting that families are mixing their dwindling food supplies with cow dung to keep from starving to death.

Caritas Internationalis Secretary General Lesley-Anne Knight said, “Our staff say that people in Zimbabwe are dropping dead on the streets from cholera. They’ve witnessed people mixing cow dung with what’s left of their food to make it go further. This is poverty at its most dehumanizing.”

At least 5.1 million people are facing starvation out of a population of 13 million people. Nearly 14,000 cases of cholera have been reported, with 1500+ resulting deaths so far. It’s unknown how people living with HIV and AIDS are surviving without either the necessary medicines or the necessary level of nutrition that is key to the effectiveness of anti-retroviral treatment. The country’s economy and agriculture - along with its education and healthcare systems - have virtually collapsed.

Meanwhile, President Robert Mugabe - AKA "The Butcher of Harare" - ends the year much as he began it, living in luxury while the crisis he created threatens to kill hundreds of thousands of his own people and, quite possibly, destabilize the whole of southern Africa.

Someone needs to put a bullet in his brain.

Tags: africa, cholera, corruption, dictator of the month, disease, loathsome people, starvation, zimbabwe
From: Chicago
Mood: Disgusted

(Hat-tip Raw Story)
A viral hemorrhagic fever that killed four people in Johannesburg has been identified as a new strain of deadly arenavirus with no known cure.

Tests performed at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control identified the new strain that has yet to be named, said Barry Schoub, executive director of the National Insititute of Communicable Diseases (NICD).

"The virus is new in terms of its genetic make up and there is currently no vaccine against it," Schoub said, adding that it has "high lethal potential for humans."

The disease was first identified in a woman airlifted from Zambia to a Johannesburg hospital who later died. A member of the medical staff who accompanied her, a nurse and a hospital cleaner who came into contact with them, also died.

Janusz Paweska, head of a special pathogens unit at NICD, said about 100 more people were still being monitored for possible symptoms of the virus, which has been linked to the Lassa fever virus of West Africa. No cases had been yet reported in Zambia where the disease is believed to have originated.

Tags: africa, disease, ebola, marburg fever, medicine, science
From: Chicago
Mood: Nature Bats Last

(Hat-tip TruthDig & Georgianne)
While National Geographic continues to rank among the world's best, mainstream sources for educating people about the gut-churning horrors of humankind, they also bring us some encouraging news once in awhile...

Like this.
Now that the "secret paradise" has been revealed, let's see how long it takes for the commercial poachers, loggers, miners and rebel "soldiers" to move in and wipe out our last-living ancestors, shall we?

You can help Jack Hanna & the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project here,
and/or Dian Fossey's Gorilla Fund International here.
P.S. Wait, what?...

Tags: africa, animals, endangered species, environment, extinction, fox news, gorillas, poaching
From: Chicago
Mood: Cautiously Pessimistic
Now Playing: 'Crash' - The Primitives

Hat-tip Vincent Fertey
Soldiers overthrew Mauritania's first democratically-elected president in a coup today and announced a military junta was taking charge of the northwest African state.

Soldiers seized President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi at his palace after he sacked senior army officers during a political crisis in the country, which straddled black and Arab Africa.

A "State Council" led by one of the sacked officers, Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, said Abdallahi was now a "former president" and annulled his previous decree sacking Abdelaziz and the heads of the army and Gendarmerie. The communique, described as the council's "Statement No. 1," was broadcast by Gulf-based Arabic television stations.

Abdallahi won Mauritania's first free, fair elections since independence in 1960 last year, taking over from a military government which ousted President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in a bloodless 2005 coup. Abdelaziz was also instrumental in Taya's overthrow, the last successful coup in Africa, and was No. 2 in the junta.

The president's daughter, Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, said the presidential guard came to the residence and took away her father at around 0920 GMT.

"We are being kept in the house, forbidden to leave. There are guards posted in the kitchen, the bedrooms, even the showers. The phones have been cut," she said.

The prime minister and interior minister had also been arrested, and the country's main airport was closed while soldiers on jeeps with heavy guns stood guard outside government buildings. Police reportedly fired tear gas at a crowd of 50 supporters of Abdallahi in the capital city of Nouakchott.

"We are against the military and we are deeply against this coup. We support Sidi to the death," said one of the protesters.

The international community, which had widely welcomed last year's democratic elections, broadly condemned today's coup. The Arab League voiced "deep concern," the African Union demanded the return of "constitutional legality" and West African regional heavyweight Nigeria said it would not recognize a government that came to power through unconstitutional means. The United States and United Nations called for a (*yawn*) "return to constitutional rule," while EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel demanded Abdallahi be restored to power, saying the coup could "put into question our policy of cooperation with Mauritania."

Abdallahi dismissed his government in May after criticism over its response to soaring food prices and to a series of attacks by al Qaeda's north African arm. A new government resigned last month in the face of a proposed no-confidence vote, and a replacement cabinet lacked the support of the opposition Union of Forces for Progress (UFP) and Islamist Tawassoul parties included in the previous team.

Mauritania, formerly a French colony, is rich in iron ore, copper and gold, and both oil and mining investments have been on the rise recently. Companies such as First Quantum, ArcelorMittal and Industries Qatar all have mining and other projects there. Malaysia's Petronas also runs an offshore crude project there, and French oil giant Total is actively prospecting.

Tags: africa, corruption, dictator of the month, greed, islam, military, mining, oil
From: Chicago
Mood: Cynical
Now Playing: 'Another One Bites The Dust' - Queen

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he is pulling out of Friday's presidential run-off, handing victory to President Robert "The Butcher of Harare" Mugabe.

Tsvangira's decision came after his supporters, heading to a rally in the capital Harare, came under attack. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says at least 70 supporters have been killed and 200,000 forced from their homes by ruling party militias.

At a press conference in Harare on Sunday, Tsvangirai said:

"We in the MDC cannot ask them to cast their vote when that vote could cost them their lives. We have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process... we will not play the game of Mugabe."

He then called on the United Nations, African Union and the SADC to intervene to prevent a "genocide" in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe's Information Minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, told the BBC that Tsvangirai pulled out the vote simply because he faced "humiliation and defeat" at the hands of Mugabe, who he said would win resoundingly. "Unfortunately," Ndlovu said, (Tsvangirai's) decision was "depriving the people of Zimbabwe of a vote."

Lots more here and here.
Damned shame, really.

Tags: africa, dictator of the month, robert mugabe, zimbabwe
From: Chicago
Mood: Bastards

(Hat-tip Raw Story)
According to officials from Nairobi-based Wildlife Direct, rebels and villagers have slaughtered at least 14 elephants in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the past two weeks.

Since April 14, FLDR militiamen killed four; Congolese word FARDC and Mai-Mai rebels killed eight, and local villagers killed two elephants in Virunga National Park.

"This is the worst month we have seen in a long time in terms of recorded elephant deaths," said Alexandre Wathaut, the provincial director for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN). "ICCN is making official representations to the Congolese military and to the militia for this slaughter to stop. We call on the international community to engage in solving the region's political problems, for the sake of the local population as well as for Virunga's unique wildlife."

Wildlife Direct chief Emmanuel de Merode said relaxing of global ivory trading rules and arrival of Chinese merchants in the lawless Great Lakes region has worsened poaching.

"The upsurge in elephant killings in Virunga is part of a widespread slaughter across the Congo Basin, and is being driven by developments on the international scene: the liberalisation of the ivory trade, being pushed by South Africa, and the increased presence of Chinese operators on the ground, who feed a massive domestic demand for ivory in their home country," he added.

Elephant populations in Virunga National Park have fallen from 3,500 in 1959 to about 350 in 1996. The death of 14 elephants therefore has a considerable impact on the viability of the local elephant population.

The killings were announced on Thursday as South Africa lifted a 13-year moratorium on elephant culling, raising concern of a return to the international trade in ivory seen in the 1970s and 1980s. The South African government earlier this year authorized the killing of elephants from May 1 as "a last resort" in limiting the numbers of the African elephant that have more than doubled since culling was halted in 1995.

Apart from elephants, rare mountain gorillas were killed last year in Virunga, one of Africa's largest parks, where local and foreign militias as well as Congolese soldiers, poachers and illegal miners regularly cross. All in all there are only 1,100 rangers protecting five national parks - four of which are classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites -in eastern DRC. Some 150 rangers have been killed while on duty in the past decade.

Tags: africa, animals, congo, elephants, environment, extinction, poaching
From: Chicago
Mood: Discouraged

(Hat-tip Chris in Paris)
Nothing says 'Olympic spirit' quite like a 77-ton shipment of Chinese guns and ammo (including AK-47s, 3 million rounds of ammo, mortars and RPGs) for a dictator to repress a nation who just voted him out.

All of the critics of communist China should just understand that Robert Mugabe (AKA "The Butcher of Harare") has the full right and authority to torture, terrorize and kill anyone he pleases because it's an "internal matter," and has nothing to do whatsoever with human rights or the international community, i.e. the rest of the world should just mind their own fuckin' business.

South African President Thabo Mbeki is also doing the right thing by allowing safe passage of weapons through his country because after all, "the papers are all in order." That's fair, right?

UPDATE: South African dock workers have apparently refused to unload the Zimbabwe-bound weapons, and it now appears that the Chinese ship has been forced to leave Durban's port based on a ruling by SA's high court that the deadly cargo could not be moved overland to Zimbabwe. Stay tuned.

P.S. First person that points out how many ruthless, bloodthirsty dictators the U.S. has plied with money and weapons gets an Captain Obvious Trophy. ☺

Tags: africa, arms trade, china, robert mugabe, zimbabwe
From: Chicago
Mood: Fuck China
Now Playing: 'Oliver's Army' - Elvis Costello

... let's keep our priorities straight, people:


A wary worker picks roses at a flower farm in violence-torn Kenya

Kenya Violence Threatens Flower Exports
In a country strangled by anger and fear, it is taking armed escorts and emergency airlifts to make sure that Kenya's most warmhearted export — the rose — arrives in time for Valentine's Day.

Kenyan flowers — mostly roses — account for a quarter of Europe's cut flower imports, and Kenyan growers have been pushing to keep exports up for the holiday despite ethnic violence that has paralyzed the East African country. They've chartered planes to embattled western cities, enlisted police to protect flower-truck convoys and made pleading cell phone calls to frightened workers urging them to return.

The central town of Naivasha — which grows 60 percent of Kenya's flowers — was hit last month. Dozens of people were hacked to death and homes were torched in one of many waves of violence since a disputed Dec. 27 election sparked ethnic clashes. Flower farms were relatively untouched, but no one showed up to pick the roses and hypericum at Wildfire Flowers the next day, or the day after [...]

Now, with about two weeks of calm since the attacks, workers have trickled back and flower shipments are getting back on track. Faced with staff shortages, growers have called on those who have returned to put in longer days to meet Valentine's Day orders in Europe... But Naivasha has not returned to normal. Luos are markedly absent from greenhouses. Those who haven't fled sleep in makeshift camps anywhere there's security — the local prison and police station are the largest. [...]

Kenya's flower industry... benefits from a yearlong growing season, a cheap work force and the ease of logistics in a country long seen as one of Africa's most stable. What's unclear is how much of that stability has disappeared. It takes a quick and dependable supply chain to get a rose from a Kenyan farm to a London supermarket before it wilts, so even the short interruption has had an effect.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Tags: africa, disgrace, dumb americans, floral porn, machete, valentine's day, violence
From: Chicago
Mood: Wait... what?
Now Playing: 'Good Year for the Roses' - Elvis Costello

(Hat-tip Rainforest Portal)
In a major victory for Uganda's people and environment, the Ugandan government has finally scrapped plans to allow the Mabira rainforest (one of the country's largest and most important protected area) to be partially cleared for sugar production for biofuels.

Environment minister Maria Mutagamba announced that the government had finally rejected a request by the privately owned Mehta Group to destroy 17,500 acres (about 1/3 of the total) of Mabira Forest and convert it to sugarcane.

Critics said razing part of Mabira would have threatened rare species, dried up a watershed for streams that feed Lake Victoria and removed a crucial buffer against pollution of the lake from two industrial towns.

This was the second time the government has heeded public anger over plans to trash forests. In May, it withdrew a license to Kenyan company, Bidco, to bulldoze a protected forest on an island in Lake Victoria to plant palm oil.

Ironically, perhaps the biggest factor in the victory was not the result of any new-found environmental consiousness within the Ugandan government, but the recent severe flooding throughout Uganda and neighboring countries which were widely reported to have been exacerbated by deforestation.

I'll take it any way I can get it. ☺

P.S. Stay current on rainforest protection issues here.

Tags: africa, ecology, environment, rainforests, uganda
From: Chicago
Mood: Pleased

"I don't believe in evil, I believe only in horror. In nature
there is no evil, only an abundance of horror..."
- Isak Dinesen
BUKAVU, Congo — Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore. Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair.

“We don’t know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear,” said Dr. Mukwege, who works in South Kivu Province, the epicenter of Congo’s rape epidemic. “They are done to destroy women.”

Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country.

“The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world,” said John Holmes, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs. “The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity — it’s appalling.”

( Read the rest )

Tags: africa, congo, rape, violence, women
From: Chicago
Mood: Sick
Now Playing: 'Experiment in Terror' - Henry Mancini

In a bizarre mishap that conservationists describe as "heartbreaking," an estimated 10,000 wildebeest have drowned while attempting to cross Kenya's Mara River during an annual migration.

The deaths, which occurred over the course of several days last week, are said to account for about one percent of the total species population.

The drownings created a grotesque wildlife pileup, after part of the migrating herd tried to ford the Mara at "a particularly treacherous crossing point," according to Terilyn Lemaire, a conservation worker with the Mara Conservancy who witnessed the spectacle.

The first animals into the river failed to cross and drowned, while others continued to stampede into the water behind them, according to Lemaire: "Once they jumped into the water, they were unable to climb up either embankment onto land and, as a result, got swept up by the current and drowned," she said. "There was no unusual flooding at the time, and there seems to be no extraneous circumstances to these deaths... the wildebeest merely chose a crossing point that was too steep."

While drowning deaths are not uncommon during the migration, Lemaire and her organization have never witnessed fatalities on this scale: "It is customary every year for the wildebeest to pick a particularly treacherous crossing point and for there to be a significant die-off," she said, "but the number of deaths during these crossings almost never exceeds one thousand."

More than a million wildebeest undertake an epic migration (video) every year in late summer, leaving their calving grounds in the Serengeti Plain of Tanzania to seek greener pastures in Kenya to the north. The animals (also known as gnu), journey some 2,000 total miles each year, often joined by thousands of zebras and Thomson's gazelles.

The deaths occurred at Kenya's Maasai Mara National Reserve, as the herd was beginning its swing to the east on its way back to the Serengeti. Since the drownings, the animals' bodies have washed downriver, beaching on the Mara's muddy banks and getting caught under a nearby bridge, Lemaire wrote in her Wildlfe Direct blog. The remains formed what she described as "pungent islands of bloated carcasses."

"The crocodiles, storks, and vultures have not had to worry about where to find their next meal," she wrote. "Those that aren't consumed will be left and will eventually decompose in the water. These thousands of carcasses will undoubtedly affect the health of the water, but to what extent, only time will tell."

Lemaire declined to speculate on the impact the mass deaths might have on the wildebeests' overall population health: "I would imagine that such a significant decrease in population would have an effect," she said, "but what that effect would be and to what extent, I cannot say."

Tags: africa, animals, nature, nature bats last, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood: Whoa

(Hat-tip ms_daisy_cutter)
The World Health Organization issued an alert today urging more doctors to travel to Congo to combat an outbreak of Ebola fever, which kills nearly all of those it infects and has no cure or treatment.

The Congolese government has declared a quarantine of the area in southeastern Congo, and experts from Medecins Sans Frontieres are already treating patients, but more help is needed.

The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the disease as a hemorrhagic fever, and specifically as Ebola. At least 167 people have died in the affected region over about four months and nearly 400 have fallen ill, said Jean-Constatin Kanow, chief medical inspector for Congo's Kasai Oriental Province.

Some of the patients have improved after being given antibiotics, which would have no impact on Ebola, WHO experts said. The experts said that led them to suspect that shigella, a diarrhea-like disease, or typhoid has broken out in the same area. Symptoms for the three diseases are similar in early stages.

In the Congolese hospital where patients were being treated — a mud hut with a corrugated roof — patients are not being isolated. That means that patients who have shigella, which is not usually a fatal disease, might be mixed with Ebola patients, putting them at risk at catching the highly fatal fever.

"There's no way we can be sure at this time how many cases are shigella and how many cases are Ebola," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman.

By the end of August, four villages had been affected and 217 people had come down with the illness, including 103 who died. Congo's last major Ebola outbreak struck in Kikwit in 1995, killing 245.

Ebola is spread through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions. It is not known where the initial infection came from, though medical researchers say it is likely from contact with an infected animal.

Tags: africa, congo, ebola, environment, epidemic
From: Chicago
Mood: Nature Bats Last

Lions vs. buffalos vs. crocodiles... who ya got?

Tags: africa, animals, lions, wildlife
From: Chicago
Mood: Wow
Now Playing: 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' - Jimmy Cliff

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"Confessions of an Economic Hitman"

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This is literally a good blog.

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Jane’s is the world’s foremost authority on high tech military weaponry.

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Punchline?

First correct answer wins a calendar.

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…and the Ironic Quote of the Year award goes to…

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“Send Us Your Broken Toys”



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Happy Anniversary, Richard.

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“Zombie Chickens”

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The undisputed King of Movie Monsters.

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”i recently started collecting the blood in a big jar, so i can do i big painting (or a series of little ones). HOWEVER, it's been a month since i started. And since i started a new cycle today, i opened the jar to add more... and it smelled SO, SO BAD… horrendous… filled my room within a few seconds. I was wondering if this was normal? Or is it because i used a jar that formerly contained chopped garlic? Do i have to start painting with the blood immediately? Does it rot if i let it sit?”

You couldn’t make this shit up if you wanted to.

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Tasmania’s logging nightmare.

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Strange Statues from Around the World

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nurzrachet can do do this with a rolled-up newspaper. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.

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Portraits by Jill Greenberg

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A day in the life of Africa, as seen by 100 photographers.

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“Cockfighting: Chicken Soup for the Soul”

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“Poisonous Legacy”

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”Hot Ghetto Mess”

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Adventures with the Venture Communist.

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And finally –

Tags: africa, animal fighting, cockfighting, cool links, hot ghetto mess, king kong, logging, monsters, nature bats last, pretty girls, tasmania, weapons
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